Ripe for the Picking
by schnook
Summary: Dear God, please let Ikuto Tsukiyomi die. Thank you. Ikuto/Amu.AU.


**Title: Ripe for the Picking**

**Summary: Dear God, please let Ikuto Tsukiyomi die. Thank you. AU.**

**Show: Shugo Chara**

**Pairing: Amu/Ikuto**

**Well, it was requested and it was written. Hope you enjoy.**

**-x-x-x-**

In hindsight, Amu Hinamori should have seen this coming. She_ had _spilt that orange juice all over her traditional oat-and-toat breakfast, after all. Her toast had seeped through her fingers in a pathetic kind of way, the orange juice pooling in the centre, ruining the crust perfection only three minutes of double-sided heating LG can ensure. The day now had a slightly acidic flavour stained onto the back of her tongue. Which was fan-friggin'-tastic.

And it hadn't even been the regular supermarket orange juice, either. No, she had gone all out this week. With a growing organic obsession (most likely planted then germinated by that strange psychic-non-psychic woman on television and her eccentric product-of-the-week recommendations), she had made the slightly hazardous journey to the fruit sellers. Who sold fruit. You know, _real_ fruit. With _real_ fruit juice.

She may have gawked.

(She was moving up in the world.)

The maths test had been next to initiate destruction on her life during the day (she had begun by writing her initials as O.J instead of A.H in the top right corner by mistake). Mondays at high school are internationally Bad. Mondays at high school, coupled with a maths test, reached entirely new lengths and breadths of Bad.

But to top it all off, Ikuto-jerk-face-Tsukiyomi had asked her out.

He served the request with a small smile, which for the first time in her life caused Amu Hinamori to wish she could punch a guy in the face.

Now, Amu Hinamori had her fair share of triumphs. Rumours were still circulating about the time she had supposedly knocked out a grown man cold with her sledge-hammer-chop kick. But that was all speculation. It was true, though, that she could kick braggart to Timbuktu. She could slap 'em fresh and frozen. She could even do the old twist-that-favourite-arm-of-yours-out-of-its-socket trick. But. She had never wanted to punch someone in the face before in her life. Hell, she didn't even know _how_ (she was sure there was some sort of ancient punching-in-the-face technique she had yet to master).

So instead of following through with the destructive intent, she blurted out the first thing that came into her head.

"I hate your face."

Ikuto frowned, only minutely.

And that was when Amu Hinamori realised she could kiss goodbye her chances for a boyfriend this year.

**-x-x-x-**

Upon transferring to Easter High, it took only one day and three hours for the student body (and several female and male teachers alike) to conclude Ikuto Tsukiyomi was the darn prettiest thing to walk the suburb of Easter since the dinosaur age.

Pretty meaning edible.

Of course.

So, perhaps Amu didn't want to admit it either. But she thought it. And maybe made a passing, arid comment to Yaya every now and again.

("I would eat his face")

("It's like he's George Clooney's would-be-self")

("Hang up _those_ abs next to your soup ladel")

("Good Lord, Yaya. Where's my camera?")

At least Tadase hadn't been around to overhear any of the conversations. The poor guy was still waiting for his _hormones_, you know. Lost in the mail. Therefore, his understanding (or agreement) on this issues was just about nought.

(To which Amu liked to remind Rima Mashiro, who in turn blushes and fidgets like a school girl with a crush. Which she technically is. In any case, the entertainment factor never loses its whiz.)

Coincidentally, it had been Tadase who had befriended the dark-haired stranger, to the surprise of just about the entire school. (Yaya had spilt her milk-in-a-beacon all down the front of Ikuto's shirt when he first approached their traditional lunch table with Tadase by his side out of sheer shock. Amu almost fell off her chair laughing. Kukai, in turn, _did_).

And coincidentally, it had been the conversation resulting from their budding friendship that had caused Amu to mentally christen the bastard as Ikuto-jerk-face-Tsukiyomi. A rite of passage, if you will.

Between fifth and sixth period. Lockers. Amu grappling a lethal looking History textbook out from her locker with Rima looking on, slightly apprehensive, slightly nauseated. Several lockers down, Tadase and Ikuto are having a conversation (if you could deem it a conversation. Tadase: friendly banter. Ikuto: grumpy half-sounds), oblivious to anyone else's presence.

A name catches the girls' attention.

"Anu Hinamotri?"

Well, sort of.

"Amu Hinamori," Tadase corrects the low baritone in the gentle way of his. He'd make a wonderful doctor. Or lion tamer.

A pair of shoulder shrug. "She looks ten," Ikuto says.

"She's cute," Tadase defends good-naturedly.

Tadase. Such a cutie. Amu makes a mental note to thank him later.

"Her lack of chest says otherwise," Ikuto counters.

There's probably a smirk on that pompous mug of his. That pompous, ugly, fatty, unattractive face of his.

Tadase, a whole head shorter, needs to look up to frown disapprovingly. "Surely you have s_omething _nice to say about her. She is my friend, you know. She's pretty sweet."

Amu sighs. Guy lingo. You'll never guess whether they mean sweet in a radical way or complimentary way. It's the Neanderthal within Tadase emerging; she's certain. Easter high was regressing to the jock era of the '90s.

Boys – they're a mystery.

Ikuto just shrugs again, and Amu wonders if the guy has any other setting than _infuriating_.

"I couldn't really care less." He turns from his new blonde friend and struts to class. _Struts_. Because that's how much of an arrogant jerk-face he is.

Rima comforts Amu with promises of shaving off all of Ikutos Tsukiyomi's precious hair during sixth period.

Amu wants to know if she really means _all_ his hair.

(It's going to be a long day.)

**-x-x-x-**

Ikuto-jerk-face-Tsukiyomi is in her Biology class.

She wanders into class Tuesday morning (_wanders_ because it sounds better than _reluctantly shuffles_ – the sole of her left shoe has begun to come off, to which she tries to convince the student population that it's the _thing_ rather than buy a new pair. Her shoe can _talk_. Can _yours_?) and spies him in that awkward middle-section of the room no one really wants to sit in. There's a free chair either side of him. Surprise, surprise.

And all Amu can think is, Dear Lord, please don't let this be a crappy Twilight moment.

Thankfully, thing don't get that bad, and all potential crises is averted.

Rima is at the back of the class, blatantly staring at Tadase three rows ahead of her. She's thrown a pencil case on the chair next to her in a decidedly predatory fashion. There were fine-liners pointing upwards to dare anyone who even considered planting their behind beside her. High school; where saving seats equals a life-or-death mission.

Her attention however, was entirely trained on the blonde. Because blowing up his pictures wasn't creepy enough.

Shuffling toward her, (she winces as her left shoe makes a kind of dying-sheep noise every time it drags against the linoleum floor) Amu gives her best Egor impression.

The class isn't particularly amused. Or grateful. Rima pales, attention finally diverted.

_Amatuers_. What would they know, anyway?

It's the day after The Incident. Amu's decided that in order to look at it scientifically, without any influence from her own biased opinions, she has to name everything in relation to the incident without actually naming them. Hence, the incident that occurred Monday is now _The Incident_. She is _The Tragic Victim_. And Ikuto-jerk-face-Tsukiyomi is-

"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named," Amu whispered to Rima in conclusion. Rimu was smart. Rima understood these things. She was up there in the ambiguous references. Rima was like Robin to her Superman; the Batman to her Mary Jane; her Spiderman to Nemo.

Historical references aside, what it came down to was trust. Amu trusted Rima. Like she trusted her toaster. That thing was seriously loyal. (_LG: Life's Good_.)

In turn, Rima blinked, frowned, then whispered, "as in Harry Potter?"

_Idiot_. Obviously the brunette still thought the world revolved around four-eyed orphans with hero-complexes. _Move on_. "No, genius. As in, This is my Life."

(Though she still had the Slytherin scarf her mother gave her for her twelfth birthday.)

(Some claimed they saw her wearing it under her uniform.)

"That doesn't even make sense."

"_I'll make you make sense!_"

Her sparkling wit was rewarded with a roll of the eyes.

"I liked you better when you were standoffish," Rima mused, watching the teacher scribble something in ancient Hebrew all over the blackboard. Apparently the return of hieroglyphics was all the rage in classrooms, now.

"I liked you better when you were mooning all over Tadase," grumbled Amu in return. "And how am I even supposed to understand that? I stopped languages last year."

"That's the formula."

"Oh."

"And I don't _moon_ over him."

"Who?"

"You know, _him_."

"Once again, _whom _are we speaking of?"

"_Tadase_."

"Who?"

"_Tadase Hotori!"_

The blonde three rows ahead of the pair turned slightly in his seat.

"Yeah?"

Ah, the lengths one goes to for entertainment.

**-x-x-x-**

There are two kinds of sexual harassment.

The first often constitutes court orders, imprisonment, fear and a whole lot of illegal documentation.

The second often constitutes high school boys and their idea of fun, or a joke, or, heaven forbid, _wooing_.

But perhaps Ikuto-jerk-face-Tsukiyomi's behaviour didn't involve any traditional sexual harassment, per se. However, there are certain points that must be presented to the case. Therefore:

1) He attends school.

Granted, perhaps it's not the usual association with crime. But when a seventeen-year-old boy turns up at school on a Harley in a fitted leather jacket, all kinds of eyeball rape is committed. Any hapless, poor victim may be strolling along, minding their own business, and _bam!_

Another one bites the dust.

2) He answers up in class.

Odd, but true. For someone who seems to ruthlessly scrape up the image of the moody delinquent, he answers eloquently and concisely. Like he's been studying all night instead of, you know, talking about naked supermodels with the rest of the high school guys (save for Tadase, who may or may not have first needed basic education on the subject first). At any rate, it's one more sinker to catch unsuspecting fish.

But she won't be fooled, mind you.

3) He makes pleasant conversation.

Truth be told, nothing he says is particularly apocalyptic. He's far too sedate for that. But sometimes, only sometimes, she needs to walk away quickly so he won't see the smile that was forming.

Besides, the joke wasn't even _that_ funny. He'd laughed harder at hers.

4) He hasn't given up.

Unforgiveable. Unimaginable. Unbelievable.

She tells herself it's all a part of his grand scheme to make her fall from grace.

Still, she tells him his green Crocs are the ugliest things she has ever seen, and in turn, he grins and twists his feet about.

It makes the year seem a little better.

**-x-x-x-**

**End.**

**Review, and I tend to start singing Hey Jude in Double Dutch. (It's a bit tricky).**

**x Schnook**


End file.
